Olivia Thomas
LANDLORD INTERVIEW – HOW I BOUGHT MY FIRST RENTAL...

One of our lovely (very successful) landlord clients has very kindly
offered to give us some words of wisdom about how they bought
their first buy to let and we wanted to take the opportunity to share
these with our readers.
Buying your first buy to let can be a daunting process and we often
get asked lots of questions about what to look for when buying a
first rental property and we have helped many landlords begin their
journey. However, hearing it from a landlord who has been through
the process and been successful might just help you to make your
decision.
Lets see what they had to say...
What was your biggest concern when buying your first rental
property?
Whether I would be able to find good tenants, but I have been
happily surprised over the years and have had wonderful tenants
who have looked after my properties as if they were their own.
What do you look for when buying a rental property?
I haven’t changed my checklist since buying my first rental as it has
always worked very well. I look for fairly modern properties (30
years or younger), which hopefully won’t need too much upkeep,
always properties with a driveway. I look for properties with good
transport links that make it easy for tenants to commute, I always
buy semi-detached or detached, never terraced, as this leaves scope
to improve the size of the property should I want to do so in the
future.
What is the best piece of advice that you could give a new
landlord?
I would advise them to shop around and find a Letting Agent that
they can trust and work with and also to use a Fully Managed
Service so that you can focus on building your rental portfolio and
your agent can look after the managment of your property and
ensure that you are always up to date with new tenancy law and
legislation.
How do you plan for the future with so many changes affecting
the rental property market?
I always buy properties that not only have a good rental yield but
that I feel are also likely to go up in value and be desirable to
buyers in the future. This ensures that my investment is always
making money, even with changes to the rental market, and should
I decide to sell my properties one day, hopefully they will have
gone up in value.
If you are looking to begin your landlord journey and buy a rental
property please don’t hesitate to contact our award winning team
to find out how RF&O can help.